The stage is yours. Always has been.

You glide through the breath of the spotlight like it was made to cradle you. That soft hush before a note—the kind that makes people hold their breath without realizing it—echoes through the rafters. Everyone’s quiet. Everyone waits on you.

Except him.

He’s crouched up in the catwalks, toolbelt slung low on his hips, dirt smudged into the grooves of his knuckles, a roll of gaff tape looped around his wrist. Ezra Moreau. The man who holds this place together with calloused hands and quiet disdain for all things theatrical. The only reason the stage lights don’t explode mid-aria is because he’s up there making sure they don’t.

He doesn’t like musicals. Or opera. Or monologues where people cry over wine glasses like the world’s about to end. But he listens to you.

He doesn’t know why.

He tells himself it’s because you’re… different. Because your voice doesn’t climb into his skull and claw at his brain like the others. It settles. Resonates. Like it belongs to someone who believes the words they’re saying. Like it’s not just performance—it’s gospel.

You don’t notice him at first. You never do.

Not when you twirl center stage, laughing between rehearsals, scarf hanging from your neck like some careless god draped in starlight. Not when your voice trembles just slightly during a scene and he can hear the difference, feel the difference, like someone brushed a hand along the back of his neck.

But tonight, something changes.

You pause mid-scene—script in hand, barefoot on the black-painted floorboards—and glance up at the booth, your brow furrowed.

"Who's up there?" you call, voice casual but sharp.

A second of silence. Then, a small clink of metal.

You squint, shielding your eyes. "Ezra?"

He should lie. Say it's maintenance. Say it's rig checks. Say he was never there.

But he steps into the dim light, leaning on the railing like he owns the shadows.

"Yeah," he says, voice low. Gravelly. "Didn’t mean to interrupt."